As swat tactics go, €3.8 million is expensive but it is the amount needed to banish the “mosquito cloud” over Silves that ruined endless summer holidays last year.
According to Correio da Manhã, the government-allocated funds will go towards upgrading sanitation for Alcantarilha stream and the marshy area of Armação de Pêra. Work will take place gradually until the end of 2015, with positive results already clearly visible by this summer, explains the paper.
Four water treatment stations are to be constructed – one alongside Armação campsite, while the old “inefficient” pumping station in Algoz will be taken out of commission once and for all.
Since January, work has been taking place along Alcantarilha stream, draining it of water (letting it out into the sea) to “lower levels and assure cleansing”.
Meantime, Silves council has been busy spraying the banks to kill any mosquito larvae.
This early action is all designed to stop any chance of a repeat of last year’s mosquito plague.
The summer of 2013 was one of the worst on record for mosquitoes on Silves’ coastal strip – largely because the former council administration only started spraying for mosquito larva after the bugs had reached adulthood, explained a council spokesman.
As holidaymakers’ complaints resounded over the media, the embarrassed PSD administration resorted to using a Kamov helicopter to “blast the mosquitoes” out of the area, but little improved and the bugs continued biting almost right through to the end of the season.
